Certain table tennis ball storage devices are known in the prior art. Table tennis ball storage devices allow a table tennis player quick convenient access to a supply of table tennis balls. Typically, during a game of table tennis, the balls may regularly land on the floor or under a table after a point. The players must chase, find, and pick up the table tennis ball prior to starting the next point. This takes time away from actual game play.
To avoid this distraction and frequent interruption of play, a table tennis ball storage device may be conveniently located so that a supply of table tennis balls is available to the players to quickly start a new point. The errant table tennis balls may be collected later at a time convenient for the players to refill the ball storage device. Prior art table tennis ball storage devices are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,499 B is a tubular device for holding table tennis balls with an opening for insertion of table tennis balls and an opening to remove the balls. Tubular devices are also known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,681 B, U.S. Pat. No. 6,050,625 B, U.S. Pat. No. 3,853,316 B, German Patent Application No. DE 31 36 170 A1, French Patent Application Nos. FR 2454820 A and FR 2599263. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,569,007 discloses a device with only one opening for both adding and removing table tennis balls, which is arranged in a corner region of the table tennis table.
In the above devices, the balls are arranged next to each other in one dimension, substantially in one single row of balls. The dimensions of these prior art devices are such that the balls cannot be arranged in two dimensional pattern relative to each other, not even if the balls are offset relative to each other. Therefore, the prior art devices are required to be relatively long, to accommodate a sufficient number of balls for continuous play without the players having to regularly stop to pick up the errant table tennis balls. This prior art design has two openings for access to the storage volume of the ball storage device, one of which serves to fill the inner volume with table-tennis balls and the other for removal of the table tennis balls, and the two openings are inconveniently far apart. This is an inconvenient design because a user has to fill the ball one at a time and move to the other end of the ball storage device to remove a ball for play.
There is a need for a compact table tennis ball storage device that has a sufficient storage capacity for table tennis balls. There is a further need for a table tennis ball storage device in which the removal and the filling openings are more convenient than the prior art devices. There is a still further need for a table tennis table comprising at least one such table tennis ball storage device.